Leverage

[jack]

This is copied from my response to vyvan's disturbing and insightful response about language development here because I thought it was interesting enough to share.[1]

Question: Why do I object to words like 'leverage(v)'?

* Making new useful words. No problem, I like that.
* Losing useless words. No problem, people don't have to say them if they don't want to. If I do, I will, and they'll probably understand :)
* Creating new words similar to old words. Even a slight shade of meaning *can* be useful -- think of english as a space of concepts with nodes at the words, where we normally choose the best, and it has a penumbra about it of meanings it could apply to, and gaps with no good word are filled in by imprecise description or synonyms ('no, "love" in blah and foo!'); then shades let us be more precise by choosing the right one, and if people don't notice we've only lost a bit, or by using several shades to triangulate even more precisely.
* But there are reasons I don't easily accept:
* Complete (generally longer) synonyms of existing words annoy me. Probably because it seems sloppy and I like well-defined and optimised things, and thinking there *is* a correct answer of some sort. I have no justification for this preference.
* New formations often depend on misconceptions, such as confusing singular/plural. Sometimes I don't mind, but often it riles me just because it seems to be accepting ignorance, and I (to misquote Speaker for the Dead) have an almost pathological reliance on the idea that the more people know the better. There's some truth here, but a lot of preference.
* Relating to the last-point-but-one, I (and many people I love) love playing with language, using exactly the correct word, and making up new ones in what seem to me good ways, and shoe-horning new (even useful) words interferes. Just us.
* Random annoyance at people who and I have difficulty communicating[2]. I remember extremely frusting someone who wanted to "lend" something of mine, genuinely not understanding.
* Subculture. People I know and like tend somewhat to be more pedantic about it, and people I don't less.
* Conservatism. We have a working langauge. It changes naturally, but there's no reason that should make it better, so I resist. A little objective sense here, maybe. But rather futile.

OK, that was cathartic. But as yet almost all preference, no good reasons.

[1] We need a system with good crossposting.
[2] I'm assured this sentence makes sense. I wanted to make it symetrical, not "with whom" or "who with me", to not imply the fault was mine or theirs.

Comments

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[ewx.livejournal.com]

Presumably whoever coined 'leverage' thought it useful too. I think I've said this before recently but I don't understand why verb leverage attracts so much deprecation; allusion and (a bit less so) zero-derivation are more widely accepted in other cases, and there are loads of cases where people fail to use the simplest possible word that will fit without provoking a whisper of complaint. I suspect it's more to do with who uses it than the word itself, but I'm not sure how to prove this.

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I somehow assumed the management-speak use was borrowed from the finance use which I assumed established 'leverage' (noun) as a concept, until it was a word enough to support modifying it rather than backtracking when you want a verb.

That is, that it would drift from when a business advantage was being magnified by borrowing to when you're trying to imply that, to when you're just saying "make money by using".

Of course, that doesn't contradict your saying it was considered useful.

I don't know why leverage; I think it attracts ire as a common example of a class many people find annoying, why? -- I tried to examine that in my post, and found some understanding but no reasons.

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

That is, that it would drift from when a business advantage was being magnified by borrowing to when you're trying to imply that, to when you're just saying "make money by using".

This one took about 6 passes to parse at all :-) I challenge any automated parsing program to reach a most plausible parsing of that sentence.

I'm sorry if I haven't participated in this discussion in general; I'm ridiculously busy for the next week or so.

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

This one took about 6 passes to parse at all :-) I challenge any automated parsing program to reach a most plausible parsing of that sentence.

Yeah, I tend to do favour such sentences; most people find it annoying, but some people seem to fall in love with me, making it I guess a good parallel for management dialect :)

I challenge any automated parsing program to reach a most plausible parsing of that sentence.

Google's to-german-and-back attempt is "That is, it would drive this of, when a business advantage was increased, by borrowing too, if you try to suggest too, if you make straight lines Saying "money are, by using". " :)

I'm sorry if I haven't participated in this discussion in general; I'm ridiculously busy for the next week or so.

Thanks. Your first comment seemed reasonably comprehensive, don't worry :) What are you doing?

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[vyvyan.livejournal.com]

What are you doing?

OU work, of many sorts. Deadline pile up (4 different tasks urgently need to be done by Monday).

Re: If so then why is it OK for poets but not for whoever first said leverage?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Ah! Good luck with that. I won't be surprised if you come back and coda each post in the discussion after that, then :)